Homeland Security Today, Phil Leggiere , 30/4/2008

New report from Greenpeace decries role of K Street in chemical security legislative process

As HSToday has pointed out in numerous articles over the past few years, most recently in February of this year, (Click here to read the full story) chemical storage and manufacturing facilities represent perhaps the single largest target of opportunity in the US for massive and catastrophic destruction. How to secure them, and whose responsibility that is, has become a hotly contentious issue, with wide frustration at the relative lack of progress. According to environmentalist activist group Greenpeace, the key obstacle to the forging of comprehensive legislation to make plants both more secure and less dangerous to begin with by switching to safer chemicals, is the power of K Street lobbyists over policy. In a report on the role of lobbyists in preventing strong laws and chemical security regulations released today the group attempts to document its claims. Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace Toxics campaign and co-author of the report spoke to HSToday.us to preview the reports contents. 

Click here to read the full report 

HSToday.us: What motivated you to put out this report?

Hind: For the most part chemical plant security is a low profile issue. But if we ever had a Bhopal type incident or a terror attack it would dwarf anything we’ve seen. One of the keys to how proactive we can be on this issue is legislation in Congress, and there you find an army of lobbyists spending millions of dollars, we believe and try to document in this report preventing effective legislation from being enacted. 

HSToday.us: What sort of methodology did you use in putting this together? How was the data compiled?

Hind: We look at the congressional lobbying records of chemical companies and allied businesses, and also the docket of DHS public comments. Then we looked at the membership of trade associations. So there were these layers of a pyramid, trade association lobbyists, company in-house lobbyists and the outside lobby firms hired by these groups. To get this we compiled data from mid-year and year-end lobbying disclosure reports. 

We only looked at companies spending $10 thousand and more, and those registered specifically to work on bills related to chemical security. 

HSToday.us: What’s the current status of legislation on chemical plant security and what motivation or strategy do you attribute to the chemical industry? What are they lobbying for?

Hind: The current chemical facility security law, which expires October 4, 2009 is a 740 word rider attached to the 2007 DHS appropriations bill. The rider actually prohibits DHS from requiring the use of safer more secure technologies and chemicals. 

Over the past year we believe there have been two primary strategies that drive the chemical industry lobby. One is to just run out the clock on the temporary law and letting it lapse next year. The other is to use the agricultural sector to scare rural area congress people from voting for chemical security legislation on the basis that it will take farmer’s chemicals away from them. There’s a lobbying group which calls itself the Agricultural Retailer’s Association which sounds like a Mom and Pop general store group but actually is composed of huge multi-nationals.

HSToday.us: What about the danger or at least the fear of excessive or heavy-handed regulation. Even assuming you’re right that the agricultural group is dominated by, or as you say a “front” for big chemical companies, might not some of their points resonate with smaller businesses?

Hind: We see that as a specious argument. These bills, though we as an environmental activist group support them and are upfront about that ,nonetheless are not environmentalist bills. They are not drawn up in the way an environmentalist would write them. They direct companies to have an assessment performed and to choose environmental alternatives that are economically feasible. 

HSToday.us: A focal point of the report seems to be how the “K Street syndrome” of revolving doors between government and big lobbying groups has corrupted the legislative process around these issues. What are some of the specifics the report goes into?

Hind: In this report we identify three former congressmen who’ve moved straight from congressional committees dealing in a very friendly way with the chemical industry to become well paid lobbyists. Perhaps more disturbingly we’ve identified instances where former congressional staff are intimately knowledgeable about pending legislation on chemical security are now lobbying the same committees they worked with. For instance we identified a lobbyist for Vulcan Materials who was now minority staff director and chief counsel to Rep. John D. Dingell, a lobbyists for CropLife America who was a key legislative Aide for James Inhofe, a key publicist for the American Chemical Council by way of Ogilvy Government Relations who was Chief of Staff for Congressman Gene Green. All of these members are strategically placed on the very committees that will decide the fate of chemical legislation this year. 

Another area of concern for us, though it isn’t a focal point of the report is the placement within DHS of people previously aligned with the chemical industry in key oversight roles. The argument from DHS is ‘Well we need people with industry experience and expertise to understand the issues.” But our position is there are also people at EPA and the Chemical Safety Board with experience too. 

HSToday.us: What about the idea of giving the industry more latitude to create its own guidelines and to self-monitor?

Hind: We say that having chemical security handled on a purely voluntary basis versus having guidelines codified is the difference between having a fire prevention flier and putting in a sprinkler system. 

HSToday.us: A skeptic or a cynic might say that a report like this is based on a kind of “conspiratorial” notion that big business calls all the shots. But actually there’s evidence in the report that some large corporate trade associations are ready to lead the fight for tighter chemical regulations and more promotion of safer chemicals.

Hind: One of the things we find encouraging is that within the National Association of Manufacturers there’s a split over the need for comprehensive legislation to insure that Inherently Safe Technologies replace hazardous ones. The Association of American Railroads, for instance, has now strongly come out for legislation mandating the replacement of dangerous chemicals including chlorine gas, sulfur dioxide, anhydrous ammonia and hydrogen fluoride. We’ve also seen victories such as congressional defeat of a law which allowed the federal government to preempt tougher state laws. So industry lobbying is effective but clearly not insurmountable. 

HSToday.us: What’s the status of current legislative activity, and what do you see as a near-term scenario?

Hind: On March 6th the Homeland Security Committee adopted the "Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008" (H.R. 5577). All of the Homeland Security Committee Democrats have co-sponsored the bill. 

H.R. 5577 requires high risk plants to convert to safer chemicals or processes. The current interim law, which will expire Oct. 2009, actually bars the government from requiring these safer processes and also exempts thousands of facilities including an estimated 3,000 water facilities from the regulations. 

Republicans unsuccessfully tried to delay, weaken and then oppose H.R.5577 even though it is similar to the bill they voted for in 2006. They made their strongest effort to delete (Lungren amendment) a new provision that merely requires the assessment of safer processes by all regulated plants. 

Many people realize it’s easier to stall legislation than it is to pass it. We’re concerned that if major comprehensive legislation isn’t passed this year that the temporary law will expire. Clearly once you get past the 2008 elections whoever runs Congress next year it will take the new Congress several months to reorganize itself. So we believe the next few months is critical if we’re ever going to get really comprehensive legislation. If not we’ve lost a big opportunity.